Something was crawling on my back inside my shirt. I ripped off my shirt. Standing there in my bra, I flicked the shirt across my back until the creepy crawly feeling diminished to a tolerable level. Then I saw the spider on the last button, wrapped around it like a child clinging to the head of the person holding him on her shoulders. I dropped the shirt, then snatched it back up and ran to the washer. Only after I threw it in, and listened to it fill up, did I realize that the dead spider would not go down the drain with the rinse water, but need to be removed by hand. I shivered. Probably I could procrastinate for a couple days. Maybe someone would drop by in that time.

That night a sleep paralysis nightmare washed over me like a thousand spiders. It felt literally like spiders walking all over me, an army of them, a family of them. Oh, God! Its family! The spider’s family. How many spiders could there be in one family? I’ve seen those eggs hatch; it seems like a never-ending supply of baby spiders, far worse than all those horrifying clowns popping out of that stupid little car.

In the morning I felt itchy everywhere, but not the itchy that cries out for scratching, rather the kind that makes you feel as though you’re being watched. I forced myself to check the washer. I gently pulled the damp shirt from the belly of the beast, shaking it frantically and tossing it in the dryer. Half-expecting the spider to launch itself at my face, I peered in slowly. It was nowhere inside my machine. Maybe I needed a better look. I grabbed a flashlight from the whatsit drawer in the kitchen and aimed it in the washer. The light circled the barrel, faster in case the little critter was still actually alive and running from the light. I did the same in the dryer, shaking the shirt again like a woman on meth, not that I knew anything about that. No spider. No carcass.

Again the same sleep paralysis nightmare overtook me. I woke breathlessly, crying. The spiders crawled all over me, as I lay there unable to move or even open my eyes, repeatedly all night, alternating with gasping wakefulness, great gulping sobs by morning. The itchiness continued unabated. The paralysis attacks me nightly. My work is suffering. What can I tell people? Where is that stupid little spider?